E-ZPass could be Pa. Turnpike's ticket to the future

Most of the 500,000 motorists who rely on the Pennsylvania Turnpike each day are less concerned about how we manage our system than they are about getting to work, to their child’s soccer game or from one end of the state to the other for a quick getaway.

The Patriot-News, 2007A toll booth stop on the Pennsylvania Turnpike

And that is entirely appropriate: If we’re doing our job, our customers will have a safe, efficient and reasonably priced trip on our system, and they won’t have to give it a second thought.

As our mission has evolved in the last 70 years, however, the turnpike has emerged as an important player for virtually every Pennsylvanian — those who use our system and those who don’t.

The Legislature has turned to the turnpike to assist with major road projects that otherwise would not be built, such as the Mon-Fayette Expressway and the Southern Beltway projects.

Since 2007, with the passage of Act 44, the turnpike has become a funding partner with PennDOT, providing more than $3 billion for road, bridge and transit projects statewide.

This evolving mission, in part, is driving our efforts to study a possible turnpike conversion to a cashless, all-electronic tolling system. In order to continue to meet the demands of our customers and the state as a whole, we need to identify ways to be more efficient.

We recently concluded the first phase of this study, which determined that a conversion is feasible under certain conditions. No final decision has been made, and a conversion would take at least five years to complete.

AET is safer because traffic flows more smoothly across a barrier-free system. Travel time for motorists is reduced. Air pollution is reduced because cars and trucks spend less time idling.

We know already that customers want AET. E-ZPass accounts for roughly 65 percent of our annual revenue, and we expect that number to continue climbing. Our E-ZPass customers enjoy an average 17 percent discount on tolls.

AET also can result in greater efficiencies for tolling agencies, so we can invest more toll dollars into our system. There are questions we just cannot answer right now, which is why we are pushing ahead with the study. We do know, however, that E-ZPass would remain the most affordable way to travel our system.

Roger Nutt

We also know that toll rates for those who don’t use E-ZPass will have to reflect the cost of collecting those tolls via technology commonly referred to as video tolling that is being used nationwide and in other countries worldwide.

It is more expensive to administer video-toll accounts, to look up license plate information and produce an invoice. In the coming months, we will focus on the questions that stakeholders have raised to date.

What are the financial implications? What would a conversion to AET mean for those towns and business centers that have grown up around the turnpike? Any final decision on AET would have to take into consideration these questions and others that have been raised by those who could be impacted.

We know that people want to be informed, and they want to have a say in this process. In fact, more than 10,000 Pennsylvanians participated in an online survey we commissioned as part of our public outreach.

We are committed to continuing this outreach every step of the way as we move forward in this extensive, AET-study process. We encourage our customers and others to visit our website at www.paturnpike. com/aet for more background on the work that’s been accomplished to date.